tigations, and, if unsuccessful, then in other parts of the United
States.

At Hamburg all his inquiries proved to be useless. The consignee of the
Canadian Transportation Company knew nothing about the passengers of the
"Cynthia," and could only give them information about the freight, which
they had already obtained.

Erik had been in Stockholm six months when they learned that the
ex-director, Mr. Joshua Churchill, had died several years before, in an
hospital, without leaving any known heirs, or probably any money. As for
the registers of the company, they had probably been sold long before as
waste paper.

These long researches led to nothing, except to provoke the sarcasms of
Mr. Bredejord, which were wounding, to the doctor's self-love, who,
however, did not as yet give way to despair.

Erik's history was now well known in the doctor's household. They no
longer forbore to speak openly about it, and the results of their
researches were talked of both in the dining-room and the parlor.

Perhaps the doctor had acted more discreetly during the first two years
of Erik's sojourn with him, when he had kept his affairs a secret. Now
they furnished food for the gossiping of Kajsa and Dame Greta, and even
occupied the thoughts of Erik himself; and his reflections were often
very melancholy.

Not to know whether his parents were still living, to reflect that he
might never be able to discover the secret of his birth, was in itself a
sad thought to him; but it was still more sad to be ignorant of the land
of his birth.

"The poorest child in the streets, the most miserable peasant, knew at
least what his country was, and to what branch of the great human family
he belonged," he would sometimes say to himself, as he thought of those
things. "But I am ignorant of all this. I am cast on the globe like a
waif, like a grain of dust tossed by the winds, and nobody knows where I
came from. I have no tradition--no past. The spot where my mother was
born, and where her ashes now rest, is perhaps profaned and trodden
under foot, and I am powerless to defend and protect it."

These thoughts saddened Erik. Sometimes he would tell himself that he
had a mother in Dame Katrina, and a home at Mr. Hersebom's, and that
Noroe was his country. He vowed that he would repay their kindness to
him fourfold, and would always be a devoted son to Norway, but still he
felt himself in an exceptional position.

Sometimes when he caught a glimp